Friday, July 28, 2017

I got the recent Death's Head II Marvel Legend a couple weeks back, and while he's very nice, once more: I wanted the original! But this comic has both flavors: from 1993, What If...? #54, "What if Minion had not Killed Death's Head?" Written by Simon Furman, art by Geoff Senior.

In the regular continuity, Death's Head was killed by the A.I.M. cyborg Minion (unrelated to the Despicable Me ones!) and his programming absorbed; and DH managed to take over and become Death's Head II. In this story, a damaged Death's Head uses a personal teleporter to escape, and Minion goes on to kill Mr. Fantastic instead!

Minion is then taken over by Baron Strucker the Fifth, and becomes Charnal. (Something similar happened in the regular timeline, as Strucker took Death's Head's body.) With a vendetta against A.I.M, Charnal begins a killing spree that could end life on the planet. A.I.M. scientist Dr. Necker rehires Death's Head, who in turn recruits himself some backup: the surviving Fantastic Four, Luke Cage, Namor, Captain America, and War Machine! DH gives them a bit of a snow job of being "sort of a latter day Avengers," but it's obvious they want revenge for Reed's death.
Charnal is tougher than the heroes expected, though; and the tide turns against them. All are killed by Charnal, with the possible exception of Cap, who is probably blown up when Death's Head finally enters the fight, with a really big gun. Still, it's not looking any better for DH, except he was only playing for time: he goads Charnal into tapping into the minds it had absorbed, in order to give Reed Richards a chance to destroy it from within. Death's Head survives, with the sobering realization...heroism is really, really dumb.
Aw, I can't stay mad at that face. I've been looking for a 3-D printed original Death's Head...head, in Marvel Legends scale; but I swear, every 3-D printing site I've been to lacks any sort of useful search function. Anyway, with that, I'm on vacation! Although as usual, the blog will continue trundling along more or less as it always does. Check out early yourselves, you've earned it!